Social Media

Blippr: Mashable Invites for Social Search

Now that social networks have managed to get users to create all sorts of content and share personal preferences about themselves concerning things like favorite movies, books and songs, we're seeing a lot more networks looking to leverage that willingness to contribute to collective knowledge about big media, mainly for recommendation purposes.

And as those established social networks move to make their content more accessible by third parties, there have been a number of search tools that can do this in a more direct manner, essentially removing the necessity to build up an entirely new network, such as Delver has done. Entirely new networks are still being built, however, and blippr is the latest to do just this. The new network is currently in private beta, but Blippr has extended a couple thousand invites for you to use. Click here to get an invite code.

At first glance, Blippr appears to be your typical social media recommendation site, and is laid out a little bit like eSnips Social DNA. You can follow users that are similar to you, and search for recommendations on media that you'd like to learn more about. So far, one of the best features on Blippr is its bookmarking tool, which lets you add blips to various lists, such as your queue, your to-do list, or a number of custom lists you can create for yourself.

It's important to note here that Blippr has described an intriguing plan for expanding on its core service, and it looks to be quite integrated with your existing social utility efforts and personal uses for accessing various sites on the web. Instead of merely adding a "Buy here" link that takes you to an Amazon page, Blippr wants to use these lists you've created to help you take action. So there will also be options for getting show times or buying movie tickets for a movie you've found a review on, or downloading a track, or even adding a movie to your Netflix queue.

Having such an action-oriented aspect to the site is one of its most powerful features, if it can be executed correctly. It speaks to the potential of having more shared data according to your personal preferences being used for action items across the web, and that's something that aligns with the core concept of Data Portability, and will eventually change the way in which the web is used.

Now that I've gotten you all excited about that, I'm sad to say that these options aren't yet available on Blippr, nor is the ability to tap into your social sphere/graph/whatever across MySpace, Facebook, etc. to get recommendations from existing friends. These will come later, as Blippr moves into public beta. One thing that doesn't seem to be part of Blippr's plan is the inclusion of people recommendations. I know that finding like-minded users is inherent in the typical activity seen throughout the site, but layering it in wouldn't hurt, especially as the network grows, and incorporates existing social graph data.

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is a leading source for news, information and resources for the Connected Generation. Mashable reports on the importance of digital innovation and how it empowers and inspires people around the world. Mashable's record 42 million unique visitors worldwide and 21 million social media followers are one of the most influential and engaged online communities. Founded in 2005, Mashable is headquartered in New York City with an office in San Francisco.